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1.3.4-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Fantine Book 3 Ch.4 Tholomyes Is So Happy, He Sings a A Spanish Song Oh, goody. Tholomyes is happy. I’m sure we’re all thrilled for him. Is there some significance to his singing a Spanish song? Should this indicate that he is dangerously foreign in his attitudes, or hot blooded, or something? And oh, Fantine, poor girl just does not appear to be having any fun. I’m starting to get a distinct feeling that her virginal attitudes come with buckets of No Social Skills; she might think swinging is scandalous as part of her virginal holy whatever, but why? (FMA) Oh no, does the poor thing think being happy is careless? She really might, given her social position. And I can see at least one way Tholomyes might have worked his way around to dominating her, if she’s that scared of seeming rude and snobby, and it makes me like him even less. I like Favourite more all the time though! She seems to be intent on just having fun, not taking the whole thing too seriously. I can totally see why she and Fantine aren’t exactly BFFs here. Granted, she’s not really nice to Fantine, but then a lot of people interpret “someone not joining in” as “someone judging me”. I don’t agree but I do understand? So sad, they could be enjoying shrubbery together. Oh, those kids and their wild times. Gascon mentioned earlier that he’d like to see someone try and draw some parallels between the Amis and the women here in general, and okay— I’m going with Favourite actually being the more Courfeyracian, far more than Tholomyes, enjoying the material world while opening her home to rather ill-fitting guests. But again, the women here lack purpose outside their own pleasure just as much as the men (except Fantine, who is blatantly not enjoying herself beyond giving Tholomyes pleasure), and it leaves them somehow hollow. Favourite is exuberant but she’s not warm or generous, and so I like her, but i won’t be sorry to see her left behind. Translation note: The FMA has Tholomyes shouting “I propose donkeys!” and apparently there’s another translation that has him saying “I offer you asses!” and in either case I think it’s the best thing he ever says. (ETA because typos in book = weird thinking!) Commentary Notquitelostnotquitefound I don’t know how to interpret its significance to Tholomyes’s character, but 19th-century French dudes like Hugo were ALL ABOUT exoticizing Spain (and pretending they knew things about it). Mimic-of-modes (reply to Notquitelostnotquitefound) To go way off on a tangent, the mid-19th century is when people in France and the UK and the US started talking about “fan language” in the context of Andalusian travelogues - Andalusian girls were supposed to be so guarded by their parents that they required secret ways to pass messages to lovers. Fan-makers picked up on this and published booklets on the “fan language”, using the exoticism as a marketing tool. Then in the early twentieth century people began to mistakenly interpret it as something commonly used in the 18th century in many cultures, and nowadays the misconception is extremely widespread. Gascon-en-exile Idealized nature in the most Romantic conception of the term is all over this chapter - every human consideration and source of reverence, from the park of the king overrun with “vagabond” birds to the religious anchorite in the grotto visited like an idle tourist attraction, is subordinated to the sensual natural bliss here assigned allusions as varied as Celtic druids and Priapus (Greek god of fertility, most famous for his enormous and perpetually erect penis). If I had to guess I’d say that the title and the moment it indicates is a bit of a feeble attempt to humanize Tholomyès a bit. He’s said to be from Toulouse, a large city in the Languedoc region of southwestern France (to the east of Gascogne, if anyone cares), fairly close to the Spanish border. Perhaps in direct contrast to the assertion from two chapters back that everyone who studies in Paris becomes a Parisian, Tholomyès is here evidently so happy that’s looking back to before he became a debauched cynical student, back to his provincial youth where he undoubtedly spoke Occitan (which, to me at least, seems closer to Spanish or Italian than French). As other club members have pointed out, the song itself is fluffy, slightly bawdy, and possibly grammatically incorrect, and as my knowledge of Spanish or its bawdy folk songs is nearly nonexistent I’ll have to leave it at that. All this romping through fields and such makes me suspect that Hugo was nostalgically looking back on these (relatively) pre-Industrial days when one could do this sort of thing in Paris. Note that Baron Haussmann’s massive renovation of Paris (1853-1870) was in full swing at the time Les Mis was published, so the increasingly changed face of the city would probably have been on Hugo’s mind at the time. Sarah1281 Is anyone in this book other than the Amis possessing of social skills? I’m literally blanking on anybody else who isn’t in some way socially awkward. Pilferingapples (reply to Sarah1281) THIS IS WHY WE ARE ALL CONSTANTLY TALKING ABOUT LES AMIS DESPERATE HUNGER FOR PEOPLE WITH SOME SORT OF HEALTHY SOCIAL INTERACTION AND DECENT SELF-IMAGES I am missing the boys SO MUCH right now AND THE NEXT CHAPTERS WILL MAKE IT WORSE THERE ARE PUNS Neornithes (reply to Pilferingapples' reply) This is so accurate it frightens me a little. Sophia-sol (reply to Pilferingapples' reply) …Dude. DUDE. How did I never notice this? I am pretty sure this is EXACTLY WHY so much of my fannish energy is centred around the Amis: because they are pretty much the happiest part of the whole dratted book. I am the sort of person who is really into happiness and fluff and warm fuzzies and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING IN THIS FANDOM but apparently I am keeping my sanity as best as possible by being all about the least crushingly distressing part of the book. (I have lots and lots and lots of feels for other things in the book! Like VALJEANNNNNNNNNN and the Valjean & Cosette relationship, just for starters, but that is pretty much NOTHING BUT HUGGING YOURSELF TIGHTLY IN DESPAIR WHILE READING, whereas the Amis are full of FRIENDSHIP YAY and then when they DO die they ALL die together and they die WILLINGLY FOR SOMETHING THEY BELIEVE IN.) Guinevak (reply to Pilferingapples' reply) Oh, c’mon. Grantaire is a rowdy drunk who never shuts up and has an embarrassingly obvious unrequited crush. Enjolras is so intense it probably makes people nervous, and responds badly to casual flirting. Joly is always on about his diseases and his pet pseudoscientific theories. Jean Prouvaire is ultra shy and doesn’t even make eye contact until you get to know him and/or piss him off. Bahorel’s idea of pleasant small talk is FUCK THE POLICE. Almost everyone is socially awkward in one way or another, and Les Amis are no exception. Anyway, what is Fantine doing in this sequence that’s so indicative of poor social skills? She refuses to swing — which is a dicey proposition in a dress; presumably the implication here is that they can all see under the girls’ skirts, and Fantine is not up for that, especially in public — which is why Favourite calls her uptight. (Notice that we don’t hear Fantine say anything about the other girls participating — she just doesn’t want to, herself.) And she’s not enthusiastic about having guys other than Tholomyes kiss her. In other words, she’s maintaining her personal boundaries. Other than that she’s fine; in the previous chapter she was laughing and talking, and if she’s not having fun she’s putting a good face on it. This is perfectly normal behavior. Manypalimpsests (reply to Guinevak's reply) The Swing, Jean Fragonard, 1767 …Yeah, they’re totally looking up the girls’ skirts. Theonlycheeseleft My translation (the Hapgood) says “I offer you asses!” and it makes me cackle like a loon every time because, oh, Tholomyes, honey, you’re all the ass anyone needs right now *ba dum tss* My interpretation of Tholomyes’s Spanish Song was always that he was just poking fun at romance. My translation of the song reads: Badajoz is my home, and love is my name. To my eyes in flame, all my soul doth come, for instruction meet I receive at my feet. Which, hell if I know what any of that means. I’m not the ~historical context expert~ around here. But this moment always struck me to have a tone of mockery to it. “Love,” your name is obviously not Tholomyes, and he certainly knows this, and the other three girls probably pick up on this. To me, Tholomyes seems to be looking at the situation, the almost over-the-top romanticism of frolicking in a field of butterflies with beautiful women, and, as he does, making everyone aware of its ridiculousness by singing an over-the-top romantic song to undercut the moment. Lest anyone think love is happy and awesome, or anything. Anyone have some context and want to shoot me down on this? Because I’m just sort of stabbing at the air right now. I am always intrigued by Fantine’s melancholy in these scenes, though. It reads to me that she’s taking her love of Tholomyes far more seriously than anyone else is. Perhaps she’s picking up on the ironic tone that everyone seems to approach their relationships with, and disapproves? Or is Hugo making some kind of statement that love, in it’s purest form, should be taken seriously and gravely, rather than lightly and playfully? Obviously, Valjean’s love for Cosette is very serious. But does this really match with the tone of Marius and Cosette’s love later? Obviously, it is ~vry srs bsns~ to Marius, but we all see that Marius is the biggest doof to ever doof about the whole thing. HUGO WHAT ARE YOU SAYING TELL ME. Someone, anyone, want to sort out my thoughts on this for me?